


A Thing I Could Not Possess

by TheIncredibleIbex



Category: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Past Murder, Period Typical Homophobia, References to World War One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 15:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5380037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIncredibleIbex/pseuds/TheIncredibleIbex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rourke doesn't know what to do with misplaced sympathy and has even less idea what to do with drastically misplaced feelings. Regardless, he's fairly certain he couldn't be less compatible with anyone than he is with Milo Thatch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thing I Could Not Possess

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from a poem by Elodia Addams called 'Possession of Hearts'. Request, hilariously, didn't come from the person who inspired this fic. She made a request for Milo/any guy from the movie and only after I was a thousand words deep in this did she clarify she meant anything but Milo/Rourke.
> 
> All those tags are for Rourke's backstory, even if this is the cliffnotes version of it. Something had to make him that cold and profit driven. Regardless, proceed with caution if triggered by any of the above.

* * *

 

Lyle Rourke was very familiar with being up all night with a headfulf of thoughts that needed avoiding.

He was less familiar with someone actually realizing that was the reason he was burning the midnight oil and the idea of someone having sympathy for him was _completely_ new. Nonetheless, Milo Thatch embodied both these unlikely things, sitting next to him by the low light of the crystal above, journal set aside for now, studying Rourke’s face with a genuine concern that was too raw for him to know what to do with. He’d gotten through most of his life solely via looking out for himself. Everything could be rationalized away with enough thought or enough money, every pang of his conscience buried underneath repetitions of ‘I did what I had to do’ and ‘it was that or starve’. He’d learned from an extremely brutal childhood onward to keep himself a number one priority.

That meant no self-pity. He was in survival mode full time even as a child, ducking his drunken father’s blows, searching through trash and stealing to keep them alive and fed. There was no room to be depressed or sentimental when he was so damn _busy_. No matter what, it always felt like he was just barely keeping himself afloat. The world wasn’t going to stop to let him get his breath. There was never time to mourn for anyone or anything so he didn’t. All the things he’d endured, from the typical horrors of war to the haunting unspoken traumas of childhood to the latest deaths of his crew had to be acknowledged only insomuch a they provided information that applied to this situation.

Milo was the only person who had asked him if he was alright and that was a simple question to answer. Of course he was. He always was and always had to be, but the younger man had the gall not to believe him. It was hard to comprehend the idea that Milo was sincerely interested beyond how this affected his own life dream of finding Atlantis. Hard to comprehend yet not a _lie_ because the brunet had nothing in him that allowed him to lie, even to save his own standing academically. He was truthful far beyond the point of it being a fault and clear into it being the most exploitable weakness Rourke had ever seen. Thus far he’d been happy to take advantage of that naïve sense of honest wonder and hope to get himself ahead; again, that was the only way Rourke knew things to work in the real world.

But now they were surrounded by bioluminescent crystals, they’d seen irrefutable proof that naïveté didn’t mean Thatch was stupid by any means, and his hand was on Rourke’s shoulder. It was a comforting gesture – well, no, it was a confusing one, it was just meant to be comforting. If Rourke knew how to be anything other than fine he might have some idea how being comforted worked. As it was, he felt like he should be doing something of some kind, something productive, something reciprocal? That last thought was the one that nagged at him. People didn’t do things for other people without wanting something in return.

People also didn’t follow a journal written in a dead language to the bottom of the ocean. There were people and the world as Rourke knew them, and then there was Milo Thatch and the world he steadfastly refused to disbelieve in where anything was possible, even Rourke being allowed a moment of weakness.

They were a small group of people whose survival hinged on a book. That was honestly not the worst situation he’d lived through, but this was the first time he could remember not feeling like he had to be less than human for the duration of it and save the fear for nightmares afterwards. He hated that Milo could make it sound like it wasn’t hopeless. Rourke dealt in reality, reality which Milo had completely redefined by being right about more things than he logically should have been. This fool’s expedition should not have led to what it did. It wasn’t supposed to go wrong since it wasn’t supposed to go anywhere in the first place, so this was what he got for not preparing for the worst for once. He should’ve been more practical, brought more weaponry, stalled the expedition until they had some idea how to fight off a leviathan.

“You have any idea how many people I just got killed, Thatch?” Rourke didn’t shrug off his hand, he just decided not to acknowledge it. “Save your sympathies for someone more deserving.”

Milo squeezed his shoulder gently, trying to get the older man to meet his eyes. “That wasn’t your fault. Nothing in any of the text or legends indicated it was a machine. There was nothing we could’ve done.”

He pried the scholar’s hand off, sighing at the misplaced sentiment. “Those kind of excuses don’t fly with me. I’m just looking at this realistically.” He wondered if that had ever kept Milo Thatch up. He was willing to bet it hadn’t, because if anyone could fight off reality, it was the Thatches, for better and worse. God help him, he was starting to find it vaguely endearing. Or maybe it was just fascinating the way all wrong things were. “You need to get some rest.”

“So do you. You know, I – I don’t have a lot of friends, but. I’m a pretty good listener. Or I try to be.” The earnestness there was painfully awkward. When had Rourke had the luxury of being awkward, or being invested in somebody else? Not that he hadn’t gotten invested in other before, but he’d had the good sense to recognize it was dangerous.

“You’re not exactly the kind of guy I’d pick if I needed a shoulder to cry on. For one, you might fall over if I tried. For another, sometime ago I got over crying. This is life. You deal with that or you die. I don’t intend to lose anyone else on this expedition, so I’m not going to indulge in some late night crybabying.”

A soft sigh, just a huff of air, really, before Milo shook his head. “You don’t get it.”

Rourke leveled a look at him that was flat, neither a glare nor neutral. “As a matter of fact I _don’t_ , Thatch. What exactly is your goal, here? There some kind of endgame to the buddy act?”

“Not everything has an endgame, Rourke. And it’s not an act. I’m just… worried.”

The ensuing pause lasted far too long. He searched Milo’s face for ulterior motives, for something that made sense, because the idea of someone simply caring wasn’t an option. In his life he’d had his share of men and women alike who ‘cared’. He’d ended up broke at best and stranded in enemy territory at worst. There was only so many times a man could be fooled before it cost him his life. He hadn’t survived this long to be done in by some starry eyed _kid_. His face softened as the confusion on Milo’s face grew more pronounced. When the linguist blushed and looked away, even the low lighting couldn’t save him.

“So that’s it,” he murmured, leaning back, looking at Milo anew.

Distantly he remembered the feeling of his father’s hands around his neck, words like fag and sissy ringing in his ears. When he’d woken up he had been in the parlor of their neighbor’s, his father missing. Memories of running after that drunk monster and being too late echoed in his head like an old melody. He’d done this song and dance before. This wasn’t new to Rourke, not something to clutch pearls and leap away in horror over. He’d made the mistake of trying to love someone more than once, confused a good looking face and a soft smile for something permanent, something he could count on. Every time he counted on someone, they found ways to use him. So he used them first when he could, kept the rest of the people around him on his side but never close on any other level. He told none of his own secrets, kept other people’s like spare ammunition.

There was a time when he believed love was a thing he could own, that he would possess it if he found the right person who would somehow bestow it upon him. There was a time he would have jumped at this chance. But even with plans to turn Milo’s dream into his own personal fortune, he wasn’t about to take advantage of anyone _this_ way. He knew what that was like. With a slight shake of his head as Milo opened his mouth, he brushed stray hair out of the younger man’s face to catch his eyes as he spoke.

“I don’t do romance, Thatch. You’ve got a lot of potential as not just a linguist, but an archaeologist. Don’t throw it away for something that won’t last. You can only chase dreams so far before you run into a nightmare.” He stood up, deciding it was better to stay sleepless in his makeshift bed than it was to waste him time on talking sense into anyone foolish enough to care about someone they didn’t even know. He’d done things that would make Milo run for the hills. He wanted to keep Milo sheltered enough to still find things horrifying. “You’re a walking casualty if you get caught up in other people this quickly. For Christ’s sake, at least try not to be so obvious. You’ll get yourself beaten to death in an alley somewhere.”

Milo reached out to touch his wrist, stumbling to his own feet. “What do you care if I end up in an alley? If you don’t care-”

That was a perfectly valid question he dealt with by not dealing with it at all. He certainly didn’t think of his father standing over the body of the first guy Rourke had ever kissed, in a bloody Baltimore back alley while the snow fell thick and heavy. It had taken six officers to haul the man away while Rourke, the younger Rourke, stood in the cold feeling something inside him flicker and die. He wished it had stayed dead instead of flaring up, wished he had learned his lesson. But that was the way life worked: people were violent, people killed, people used and abused and the people who didn’t found themselves dead.

He turned around and kissed Milo, hard. He kissed him because he reminded him of a time where he was still Lyle and not Rourke to the world, because he was the first genuine person he’d met in what felt like decades, because he was full of optimism so pure Rourke wouldn’t have been surprised if this was his first kiss. For a moment he closed his eyes, let Milo tangle their hands together, and let himself pretend again that love was a thing a person like him could possess.

Rourke pulled away as soon as the thought hit him, spun on his heel and went directly to his tent. Milo didn’t follow, standing as if frozen, his face a perfect picture of confusion. Better that way than hurt, than anger, than broken-heartedness. The only reason Rourke had signed onto this was money. He wasn’t in this to leave Milo shattered. But maybe he’d get the hint now that he was dealing with an unstable force he did not even begin to understand.

And maybe if he shut his eyes hard enough Rourke could pretend he didn’t feel the desparate need to kiss him again.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Could Have Gone Differently](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5440121) by [ViennaFanficProductions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViennaFanficProductions/pseuds/ViennaFanficProductions)




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